The word SLAVIA is something that has existed for a
very long time, but still even for Slavic people it sounds artificial.

There is one interesting thing about the word
Yugoslavia in my mind, or at least that is what we understand when we hear that
name.The first time we heard this name was in 1917 or 1918.

YUGOSLAVIA

Or JUGOSLAVIJACroatian or or ЈУГОСЛАВИЈАSerbian or

(JUGOSLAVIA)‘west’ Latin version(ЈУГОСЛАВИА)‘east’ Cyrilic version

The name Yugoslavia,
or Jugoslavija in my mother tongue,
always sounded like an artificial word, unusual for the “Slavic ear”. However,
that was the name of the country in which I was born, and I
recognized it as and considered it the name of my homeland.

In a simple translation of this word Jugoslavija it means exactly South Slavia, JUGO- south, and SLAVIJA – Slavia. So, the name of the
State which was established in 1918 was exactly SouthSlavia. We also recognized this new state as the Kingdom of
the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
This country or union of these SlavicBalcanic states was internationally
recognized at that time. Also, in 1943, Josip
Broz Tito with his partisans established a new country which got an
official name, FNRJ (Federal
People’s Republic of Yugoslavia). These abbreviations FNR or NR changed a few
times in the course of history before we got the official name at the early
70’s: SFRJ – Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia.

As we can see, this term was changed many times,
but one word remained the same, Yugoslavia.
The Yugoslavian citizens usually
called this country New Yugoslavia -
NOVA JUGOSLAVIJA, the old one, Old Yugoslavia - STARA JUGOSLAVIJA, was the one established in 1918. The New Yugoslavia
was also recognized by the whole world. And because of that to me it sounds a
bit strange that the whole world did not recognize the same country by the same
name in 1992, but they supported the
division of the country. However, I don’t want to talk about that. I want to
talk about this very original name Yugoslavia.
I always used to ask myself where this original name came from. How can it be
possible that it existed for 70 years, but today it has lost the meaning?

There is also one interesting thing about the national anthem of Yugoslavia. The name
is O SLAVS – HEJ SLAVENI in
Croatian, Western or Latin version, or ХЕЈ
СЛОВЕНИ in Serbian or east Cyrilic
version. The words were written bySamuel
Tomašik, composed (by unknown) in the mid 19th century as an anthem for the Slavonic movement. The anthem melody is
nearly the same as that in Poland.

The name of the country, anthem etc.
resembled the country of the South
Slavs. Even when living in Yugoslavia
I never noticed that the concept of South
Slavs was important. Of the whole concept we only have the name of the
country. It was also a communistic country during that time, and the socialist
movement was more important than any kind of Slavism. The name of the official language in Yugoslavia was Serbo-Croatian
or Croatian-Serbian, SRPSKOHRVATSKI –
HRVATSKOSRPSKI or СРПСКОХРВАТСКИ
–
ХРВАТСКОСРПСКИ. There was bilingualism
in Slovenia and Macedonia and also in the two autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina in the Republic of
Serbia. Today the international community has recognized one new language,
the Bosnian BOSANSKI. For me, as
someone who lived in Bosnia for 20
years, it is very difficult to call my mother tongue by a new name. As a Croat from Bosnia I can call my
language just the Croatian language,
but when I lived in Bosnia at the
time, I called this language Serbo-Croatian,
and it sounds a little bit strange to me that I call that language even today
by the name of Croatian.

It seems that the names of the same language have
been changing all the time in a short historical period. If we talk about
citizenship in the time of the ‘last’
Yugoslavia, there were actually two citizenships, the official citizenship
of Yugoslavia and the automatic
citizenship of the socialistic state in which you were born. Today there have
been quite a lot of changes also in that area.

It is very interesting that the Bosnian
Muslims did not have the right to declare themselves as anything else but Serbs or Croats before 1992, which was
logic because they are Serbs or Croats,
who just took a different religion 500years ago. It was interesting that
nobody in Bosnia could declare
themselves as, for example, a Bosnian
or something similar along the line. It also seems very strange to me that the
International Community has recognized a new-old nationality, or almost a
"nation", the BOSNIACS, in the original Serbo-Croatian
language BOŠNJACI, and this term is today the exact official name of the
same South Slavic people, of the same Serbs and Croats, who just took a
different religion 500 years ago, when the Ottomans occupied Bosnia. We can
deduct of course that the Bosniacs belong to the same ethnic tree as the Serbs and the Croats.

In that time the part of Serbs and Croats already took a different
religion, going from pantheism to the monotheism. They became Bogomils (BOGUMILI)
in one part of Herzegovina.

Bogomilism
is the Gnostic dualistic sect, the synthesis of Armenian Paulicianism and the
local Slavonic Church reform movement in Bulgaria and Herzegovina between 950
and 1396 and in the Byzantine Empire between 1018 and 1186.

They established their own faith at that time, and
they were very strong especially in Bulgaria and in one part of Herzegovina. Because of that they were not recognized by any
church, orthodox or catholic, and most of them turned to Islam when the
Ottomans came, but kept their Slavic language and roots. Eventhough they
changed religion three times from Pantheism through Bogumilism to Islam, they
did not, of course, become anything else than Serbs or Croats, South Slavs or
at least, let’s say, citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. For all that time and
during all those historical changes all of them spoke the same language.

Some of these same people from Pantheism through Bogumilism to Islam became
to be later Catholics or Orthodox, which means that an individual who became
Catholic at that time, he or his descendants declare themselves today as
Croats, and an

individual who became Orthodox at that time, he or his descendants declare
themselves today as Serbs. At the same time all of them can declare themselves
as citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at the same time the Croats from Bosnia
and Herzegovina can automatically have citizenship of Croatia, because they
declare themselves as Croats, and Serbs can automatically have citizenship of
Serbia, because they declare themselves as Serbs, what they are anyway, of
course.

This is a typical characteristic of our Slavic mentality, especially South
Slavic mentality – fickle, inconstant and changeable, which helped conquerors
during history to keep us in their power.

That was a good moment for the Turks to practice the politics of Divide et
impera, that means one people against itself, Slavs against Slavs. And as we
can see, that praxis has continued even till today, especially between the
South Slavs. Through all these happenings and changes in the history there is always
one thing that has stayed the same, the SLAVIC
ELEMENT. In my opinion religion should not be the point of division in any
case.

In my opinion SLAVENISM
is a part of our identity and we should not lose it in the future.

If we look at the union of Slovakia and the Czech
Republic, CZECHOSLOVAKIA – ČESKOSLOVENSKO, that was also some
kind of union of Central European Slavs,
which was quite logic, at least at that time, but they never got a name
like WESTSLAVIA etc.

At one moment in history, the SORBS of LUSATIA
believed they would be able to make a union with the Czechs and the Slovaks. If
that had happened, then probably the Polish and Kashubians could have
enjoyed the same union or made some kind of West Slavic Union,
which, very possibly, could have been some kind of WESTSLAVIA, at least at that time. Maybe the Rusyns and
Carpatho-Rusyns should take a better look at their own history.

Today we quite often notice that there
are ideas concerning a union between the East Slavic peoples, Belarus,
Ukraine and Russia, former Slavic states of USSR. One day they can start to use some kind of name such as EASTSLAVIA, or something similar, why
not. The old and beautiful word SLAVIA
gives a right and a possibility for something like that.

Like l already said, the SLAVIC ELEMENT is very much present, and it is one thing that
has stayed the same.

SLAVIA, SLAVIC ELEMENT,
SLAVENISM - this is something
that has existed for a very long time, and today we only have to give
these terms a right direction.